find

"My assistance!" with some surprise; but the gentleness of her look added, "How can you it in your heart to be so satirical to me!" "Yes, if you will be so good as to give it," was the courteous answer. Will was properly grave now.

Honor had beckoned Dym to the cosy-looking chair beside her, and Will, shading his eyes from the sudden blaze, could see the two upturned faces directed towards him with some little anxiety; at least, Honor's looked anxious. Dym hardly knew if Will were jesting or in earnest. Evidently Will was in no hurry to explain himself; he leaned back in his chair, and his left hand toyed with the little gold cross, a gift from Dym, that hung suspended to his watch-chain, as he noted the pleasantness of the fireside picture; Dym's shadowy little face, no longer bright and sparkling, and Honor's fair profile and coronet of ruddy brown hair.

"What is it, Will?" asked Dym at last, somewhat wearily.

She stirred a little as Will began his subject; Honor listened with grave intentness; she was evidently prepared for what he had to say. When | he had finished, Dym caught her breath, and then sat up and looked at him with a moved face between laughing and crying.

"Well, Dym."

“Oh, Will, is it really true? How kind, how generous, of Mr. Chichester! Oh, I am so glad!" and the little creature-for she was a little creature beside Honor-sprung up from her seat and threw her arms around his neck.

rest when you are there."

Will listens with a curious smile. "Is it dingy ?" he wonders. There are wide street-corners, where the sweet air blows straight from Hampstead and Highgate; there are patches of green to be seen between the houses; when he walks up the street, the children look at the bowed figure and the bright, kindly eyes, and smile and curtsey; the women come to the door with rough neighborly greeting; and even the sweep in Paradise-row pulls a grimy forelock as he passes. He has friends among them-many and many a one. It is not all rags and filth and wretchedness. How many life-histories he has conned among themnoble ones some of them-that would put to shame the most exciting fiction ever written! Humble heroes and heroines in real life, with unwashed faces perhaps, with rough knobby hands, with threadbare coats and patched gowns. Will knows them all; he has sat among them and given them the right hand of fellowship often and often.

Will likes to see the children he has baptized growing up about him; he gathers the bigger ones around him on Sunday afternoons, and tells them Bible stories-childish histories of Joseph and Samuel and Timothy. Little Dick Maynard thinks he would like to be Samuel best-Samuel's little coat, the altar lights, the swaying censers, Eli's hoary head, the hush, the mystery, the soft coloring, have wrought a vast impression on the crippled boy. Dick rehearses it all in the little garret when he and his family of linnets are alone. "When I grow up I mean to be a prophet," says Dick, with a flicker of his sandy eyebrows.

"Of course not. We shall not have finished all night long," exclaimed Dym, in the same hysterical voice. "Oh, Will, to think you will not be worked to death any more at that dreadful old St. Luke's!"

and knowing this, it does seem hard to send her out into the world again."

"I am older and wiser now. I can work," interrupted Dym, proudly. Will passed his hand over the soft hair with a caressing gesture.

"You will work, and bravely too, dear. I have never doubted your courage, Dym; but you will think me hard for all that.”

"I do not understand you, certainly," was the uncompromising answer-Dym's heart was grow ing a little sore and angry over Will's strange hesitation-" when we have always wished to live together, when you have so often been lonely and wanted me."

"I shall always want you, Dym, darling. I wish I could take you back to St. Luke's with me now"-but a strange earnestness coming into his voice-"my heart fails me when I think of leaving my work."

Dym did not answer; and he went on: "I am not fit for new places. I am a poor creature, Dym, and the old grooves fit me best; the time has gone by," he went on more hurriedly, "when I should have been happy in this dream-cottage of ours. I should like to have you near me, but I should be restless without my work. Granted that the strain is great, that I have too much to do at St. Luke's, it is better to wear out than rust out as I should do here."

not. "I have nothing to forgive; you are always right, Will," faltered the little sister; but evidently the struggle was a hard one, for as he stooped down and kissed her she suddenly caught her hands from his and sprang away; and Honor could hear a low sob as the door closed behind her. Will rose as though to follow her, and then he sat down again.

"She is a dear good child," he murmured, and his tone was full of pain. his tone was full of pain. "Miss Nethecote, you will keep your promise, you will try to comfort for her disappointment, and help Mr. Chichester to see this in its true light?"

"I will try, but I am rather doubtful of my If you knew how he has set his heart on this-he and all of us!"

success.

"It does me good to hear it. When I go back to St. Luke's it will be sweet to remember that you all wished me to come among you. Believe me I am not ungrateful-you do not think me so?" hesitating, as though for her to speak.

"No, not ungrateful; no one who knows you could entertain such a thought for a moment; but I think you are wrong."

"In what?" returned Will, with a sudden flush. "Do you need to ask the question?" she replied, looking at him with eyes full of kindness. "We are your friends, and yet you deny us your confidence. You are in trouble; you have some

Will shook his head sadly.

"Even here; the worn-out hack runs best in its old traces. You want to turn me out to grass, Dym, and I have no appetite for it; even the weir and the honeysuckle will be less sweet to me than the children's faces in the dingy streets you hate." "Will, is this your only reason?”

us, you will go back to St. Luke's and bear it alone. Is this fair, is this kind, Mr. Elliott ?"

For one moment the thought crossed Will's mind that he would partially unburden himself to this large-hearted woman, who looked at him with such honest eyes, whose voice was so full of sympathy; but the next minute he rejected it with scorn: it was weak, cowardly; he knew enough

"If I have other reasons-good only to myself -my child must trust me with them," he returned, quietly. "They lie between me and my conscience. Will you try not to think me too hard, Dym, because I have refused to share with you the only little gleam of sunshine that has fallen across our path? Will you forgive and trust me still that I am doing the right thing, though you do not know all my reasons?"

It must have been a sullen nature that could have resisted that pleading voice. Dym could

it would cast a shadow over her brightness, she was so pitiful over any sort of suffering.

"Some walk in sunshine, and some in shadow, each in his own path; it will not lighten the burden because I shift it off on other shoulders,” thought Will.

"Will you trust me?" she repeated, coming a little closer to him.

"I cannot," replied poor Will; his head drooped on his breast, a sudden pain tortured the poor heart. Was this the end of it all-had he been wrong-was it all a mistake? Who knows?

"At least you will let us do all we can for you?" pleaded Honor. "When I was sick, you visited me; when I was unhappy, you consoled me; it is you to whom we owe our happiness. Guy and I will never forget that."

"I only did my duty," responded Will, sadly; "it was one more to whom to minister. You have your life before you, Miss Nethecote-I told you so then." He paused-some change came over his face, some strange energy into his voice -and as she was about to speak, with some sudden impulse he turned and blessed her as she stood.

The rooms at Nidderdale Cottage were empty when Humphrey came back to them the next evening. Will had taken his sister up to Ingleside, and he and Dym were having a quiet time together.

Dym secretly reproached herself for not enjoying it more; in spite of her efforts the week wore slowly away. Will was all that she could wish; he drove out with her, walked with her up and down the sunny terraces, read and talked to her, but still there was something wanting. Reading and conversation had lost their flavor; strange silences fell between this brother and sister, who had hitherto been all in all to each other. In Dym's manner there was a little reserve, a slight infusion of gravity. Will's gentleness could not lay the uneasy spirit. Will, as he looked at her, sometimes feared that something had quelled the sweet buoyancy of her spirits forever.

What was it? I wonder if Dym could have answered? A secret dispensation troubled her serenity. Was she sick or unhappy, that this sudden loathing had come upon her? You may be sure that Will dealt tenderly with the girl's soreness and irritability. Had her faith in him received a shock? did she distrust the kindness that had refused to make a home for her? Will could not tell; they had never referred to the conversation they had had at the Cottage. Dym talked little about St. Luke's; she listened patiently, but without interest, when Will told her about the new schools that Mr. Chichester had promised to build, and how, when the vicarage was finished, he was to have rooms in it, and live with Mr. Benedict, who was a childless widower. "I shall be quite rich then," observed Will, cheerfully. "Fifty pounds a year more, and no

rent to pay. You will come and stay with me then, Dym, weeks and weeks at a time. You know Mr. Benedict will be glad to have you for your own sake as well as mine. His sister, Mrs. Musgrave, comes to him for months together."

"Yes, Will," returned Dym languidly; come to him-of course she would come to him. She looked at Will with puzzled eyes when he asked how soon she would have to leave Ingleside. How could she know? There were all sorts of plans revolving in Mr. Chichester's mind, Dym believed; something was said of his taking Honor away for a long time. Honor wanted to see Rome and Switzerland; and then Dr. Grey had spoken of a winter at Mentone; it might be that she would be still at Ingleside for months.

"I am glad to hear it," was Will's reply. But there was the same dull, puzzled look in Dym's dark eyes; was she glad too? perhaps so. It had come to this, that the very stones of Ingleside were dear to her; that she would rather stay there in the empty, solitary rooms than leave it for another place.

Dym had her visitings of compunction after Will had left her: after all, had she treated him kindly?

She came out and fingered his wraps with little cold hands when the carriage drove around to take him to the station, and then busied herself with the parcels of sandwiches the housekeeper had thoughtfully sent up as provision for the journey. "I suppose you send your love to Dick?" inquired Will, as he invested himself with some difficulty into his great-coat.

66

Yes, yes," she returned, bursting into tears. Oh, why had she been so hard and disagreeable to him? He was everything to her-father and mother and sister and brother in one; he had never thwarted her, never spoken unkindly to her. all her life long, and yet how often she had been cross with him!

"Take care of yourself. I cannot bear you to go. Promise me you will come and see me again," she sobbed, clinging to him.

Will looked at her in a little surprise, but he was kinder than ever, Dym thought in her penitence. She stood at the door waving her hand and trying to smile as the carriage rolled down the sweep; he could see the flutter of her gray dress on the terrace long after he was down the hill; the sun was shining on the vicarage walls as